I never understood the title of Pink Martini’s second album, Hang on, Little Tomato, until this year’s seed-starting experiment.

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OK, so the globally-influenced Portland, Ore., band’s got nothing to do with gardening other than its piquant, chuckle-inducing minute-long version of a ketchup-ad soundtrack. But that song title has been stuck in my head all spring as I watched over the tomato, tomatillo and pepper seedlings that I feared I would completely arse up. But here’s the thing about plants, as fellow blogger and commenter Kitt kept encouraging me: THEY WANT TO GROW.

They want to grow when you forget to fertilize them. They want to grow when you let their too-abundant neighbors shoulder out their light. They want to grow when you become insanely busy writing instead of repotting them in a timely fashion.

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They even want to grow when you get frustrated with their tangled stalks and break them. Or when, proudly ferrying them to your office for a co-worker’s son, you turn to the wind at the wrong angle and a howling gale breaks them off right at the soil line, as happened with one of my strongest purple tomatillo plants and a pretty good Kosovo tomato, destined for photographer Cyrus McCrimmon’s son Cormac.

They want to grow even when perfect hardening-off weather suddenly becomes “hide from the hailstorm” weather.

Regardless of the fact that I’m giving away tomato plants like crazy, I couldn’t help but join in on Room editor Elana Jefferson’s plant order to chileplants.com. Only in the interests of helping her meet her minimum order, of course. So I’ve ordered a “Black Pear” tomato and a “Senorita” jalapeno. (In addition to pepper and tomato plants, they sell eggplants). One of the things I learned from Joan Gussow’s “This Organic Life” was that to really grow food, you need to grow some things for storage. Growing storage potatoes sounds like more than I want to take on, but I’ve got a friend with a food dehydrator, so I could grow a tomato variety that’s touted as great for drying.

Would I have gone to all the trouble of starting seeds in March if I’d known I could mail-order ready-to-plant heirloom tomatoes and “Listada de Gandia” eggplants and umpteen bajillion different peppers? Maybe not. But as features editor Dana Coffield told me, “You have to.” I’m not sure if she meant I had to do it as an experiment and writing subject, or that I had to indulge my hell-bentness to grow veggies, or that I had to just get into the dirt (well, soilless growing medium) while it was still snowing out. Likely it’s all three. And as usual, she’s right; I had to do it.

Dirt Date: 10-2 p.m., Saturday June 14, Denver’s Cuernavaca Park. If you’ve been wanting to see electric lawnmowers in action, here’s your chance at Mow Down Pollution Denver. Mayor John Hickenlooper, radio personalities, green lawn-care companies — and me! The deets are here; and if you want to know how MY electric lawnmower performed (yes, I bought the Neuton) pick up a Denver Post tomorrow (Friday) and check the Grow section.

Dirt-y read: Whether you call it edible landscaping or kitchen gardening, the GYO — grow your own — movement is getting huge traction. Read about why here, and if your local source for seeds has seen a huge boom, email me at susanc2@gmail.com.

For Taylor Alexandra Adams and Elise Jean Woodruff — and the 68 others who were either debutantes or Young Men of Distinction — Saturday night’s Le Bal de Ballet lived up to its billing of a Magical Journey. Read more…

How do you spell relief?
Thanks to Colorado branch of the Volunteers of America, 100 homeless individuals, including families with children, have a roof over their heads at night. The VOA Family Motel at 4855 W. Colfax Ave., provides a clean and safe place for them to stay, if only temporarily.
But the constant use takes a toll, and a good sprucing up is needed every now and then. Last week, relief pitchers LaTroy Hawkins and Zach McClellan of the Colorado Rockies devoted an afternoon to painting rooms at the Family Motel, joining students and teachers from the Jefferson County Schools Johnson Program.
Hawkins and McClellan are members of the Major League Baseball Players Trust which has “action teams” in various cities across the country. The action teams promote volunteerism by encouraging young people to make a positive difference in their respective communities.
In addition to Denver, there are action teams in Philadelphia, Boston, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Detroit, Minneapolis, New York City, Oakland, Portland (Maine), San Francisco and Seattle. There are plans to expand the program to Indiannapolis, Cincinnati, Houston and Mobile.
The VOA Family Motel allows up to 12 days of shelter to those in need of emergency housing. VOA estimates there are 4,600 men, women and children in the metro area that are homeless.

Pictures taken at the VOA Family Motel sprucing-up can be seen at denverpost.com/SeenGallery.

Denver Post Society Editor Joanne Davidson can be reached at 303-809-1314 or jdavidson@denverpost.com. Her column appears every Sunday, Wednesday and Friday in the Scene section.